


Seasons

by SoDoRoses (FairyChess)



Series: LAOFT Extras [73]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Seasonal Affective Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 04:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20988824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/SoDoRoses
Summary: “You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen.”- Ernest Hemingway





	Seasons

**Author's Note:**

> bit of a vent fic
> 
> many thanks to [Vivi_Marius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vivi_Marius/pseuds/Vivi_Marius) for beta-reading and being generally wonderful about my Winter Sads

He needed to get up.

Logan knew that. He needed to get up, and he needed to get dressed, and he needed to eat something. At the very minimum he needed to move from the bed to the chair in the corner and sit under the sun lamp.

Logan continued to stare at the opposite wall.

It would be different if he was sleeping. Sleep was important. Even if he didn’t technically need to, it helped him feel slightly more rested and gave him respite from his somewhat less-than-pleasant thoughts.

But Logan wasn’t sleeping. It was twelve minutes past eleven a.m, and he had been awake since Roman’s alarm went off at six-thirty. Patton had left the bed next, and then Virgil, and Logan hadn’t moved except to tilt his head up for the kisses they’d offered him. He’d been awake for hours. It should be a simple undertaking, to move to the other side of the room.

There was a lump in his throat.

The door creaked open, and for a moment Logan considered pretending he was still asleep. The thought immediately made him feel like a coward, and he turned his head slightly to indicate he’d heard them enter.

Virgil came around the bed, kneeling beside it. He set down the plate of sliced apples and peanut butter on the bedside table and the lump in Logan’s throat turned thicker. No doubt this was the same thing Virgil had made for Linda’s morning snack, at eleven a.m. exactly, and Logan was still in bed. He wanted nothing more than to see her and yet he still had not moved.

“Hello, love,” said Virgil softly, running his long fingers through Logan’s hair.

Logan gave him a weak smile.

“Hello,” he said, just as soft. It didn’t hide the crack in his voice.

Virgil just kept his gentle motions along Logan’s scalp. Minutes passed.

“You have to get up, beloved,” said Virgil gently.

“I know,”

Logan didn’t move.

“Do you need help?”

Yes. No. Yes, but I shouldn’t. No, but I want it.

Logan pressed his face into the pillow, his breaths shaking.

“Hey,” soothed Virgil, reaching up with his other hand to cradle Logan’s face, “Hey, Logan. Oh, come here,”

Virgil coaxed Logan’s face to tuck in his neck, laying kisses all along the side of Logan’s face. Logan hiccuped slightly.

“I’m sorry,” murmured Virgil, “I wish I could fix it for you,”

“Papa?”

“Linda, sweetheart, could you go back in the living room with your Oma?” said Virgil immediately.

“No,” said Logan thickly, shaking his head. “No, it’s fine,”

He sat up slightly, turning so he could see Linda, rocking on her heels in the doorway.

Virgil hesitated.

“Are you sure-?”

Logan nodded, patting the space on the bed beside him as he sat against the headboard.

Maybe he ought to send her out of the room. She was so small, and seeing Logan cry could very well distress her immensely.

But somehow, the thought of hiding away, like the tears and the exhaustion were something shameful he was concealing from her, didn’t sit any better in his stomach.

Linda darted forward, climbing up and crawling over to sit on her knees next to him. Logan smiled at her, which felt like the most genuine expression he’d had all day. She gave him one back, though she looked a little lost.

“Why’re you crying?” she said, blunt and direct.

Logan cleared his throat, wiping his face with his sleeve.

“I do not have any particular reason, at the moment,” he said.

Linda wrinkled her nose.

“You just cry sometimes?”

Logan gestured her forward, turning the question over in his mind. How to explain it simply?

“You know that you and Vati are Unseelie, and I am not,” said Logan.

“Yeah?” said Linda, “You’re a Spring. You make the flowers grow in the garden,”

“Correct,” said Logan, “But- but I am a little bit _like_ the plants in the garden, as well. I need sunlight and warm air to… to perform optimally,”

Linda considered this.

“It’s winter,” she said.

“Yes,” said Logan.

“So, um,” said Linda, rocking a little, “You’re sad because you, um, miss the sun?”

A simplification, for sure. And yet she was entirely correct.

“Essentially,” said Logan, “And I am tired as well. That is why I have the special lamp you like to lay under,”

Linda considered again.

“Will you get better?”

Logan’s throat closed.

Logically, Logan knew the answer was “yes.” It was not quite three months until the first day of spring. The daffodils would come up and the days would continue to lengthen and Logan would feel fine, as he always did.

But Logan didn’t know if he could say it, right now. Didn’t know if he truly _believed_ the sun was coming back, that he would feel better soon, that this was _temporary._ It didn’t feel temporary. It felt like treading water in the bottom of a dark well, waiting for the sun to rise and unable to see the stars.

“I always do, in the spring,” he managed.

Linda nodded.

“You said you’re sleepy?”

“I am,” he said.

“What if, um,” she started, shuffling around a little, “What if you took my nap with me, in the afternoon? So you could get more sleep?”

Such a sweetly simple conclusion, and Logan didn’t have the heart to tell her that sleeping more was probably not an optimal solution for him. He smiled at her, swallowing hard to keep the tears from overflowing.

“I think that sounds like a lovely idea,” he said thickly.

Linda beamed in response, and started tugging at Logan’s hand, chattering about how many minutes and hours until lunchtime and then the nap, and then more playtime and dinner- on and on, and Logan let her pull him out of the room.

Logan did not end up getting dressed that day.

He did get up, though. And he did eat what Virgil had brought him, and he even managed to help Virgil make lunch that afternoon.

He laughed a little, when Linda led him into her room for her nap, and a sheepish Virgil stood beside the bed with the sun lamp arranged to spill warm light across the pillows.

Linda didn’t bother with the pillows at all, just bullied Logan onto his back and curled up on his chest, purring like a jet engine.

She smiled in her sleep, and Logan briefly thought that really, it was an admirable alternative for the sun anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> you can also find me at [@tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors](tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors.tumblr.com) over on tumblr, and prompts are open again ^.^


End file.
